It's The War, Stupid

We learned today of three more U.S. troops killed in Iraq, making April's total 47, the most lethal month for Americans since last September. We are also watching as U.S. troops become more and more involved in military operations within Sadr City, the Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad.

Did I just say we are watching? Silly me. What is abundantly clear is that we are NOT watching, and by we I mean we the people, we the government, we the media, we the candidates. These four "we's" have achieved a condition characteristic of societies in profound trouble: willful avoidance of facts so evident and indisputable that a "normal" society would call them unavoidable.

And so, a radical proposition: let's take just a short pause in obsessing about our current national obsessions. Among these are an economy in free-fall, jobs, oil and gasoline prices, health care, national and personal debt -- those issues which rightfully worry all Americans watching their futures grow dimmer by the day. But more issues: presidential politics, tracking polls, Reverend Wright, slips of the tongue, who-said-what-about-whom one minute ago (which we had better discuss without delay, since a moment from now, someone else will say something else about what someone else said). And finally, a category of fixations which -- let's face it -- we love best, and to which I offer merely a topical label -- Hannah Montana does Vanity Fair -- but which covers a multitude of self-replenishing distractions.

And let's not dwell on April's 47 dead or five years' 4,000 dead, those who will never worry about gas prices, presidential candidates, or semi-salacious photos in glossy magazines. As the expression goes: dead is dead. Instead, let's examine how Iraq is dimming our future in a way that none of these other issues can.

This is how: the United States has relinquished all but a tactical role in determining its own fate. We have a arrived at a point - indeed, we have long since arrived at the point -- where choices made by Moktada al Sadr, Nouri al Maliki, tribal chieftains in Anbar and Diyala, street hoodlums in Basra, gangsters in Baghdad, Shiite believers, Sunni insurgents, Kurdish separatists, and al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and beyond, are exponentially more important than any decisions emanating from the Green Zone, the Pentagon, or the White House. We spill blood and expend treasure according to the whims of others. We are now what another beknighted president, in another war, called a pitiful, helpless giant.

Am I suggesting that we should be thinking of Iraq to the exclusion of all else? Far from it. Here's what I am saying: the war in Iraq is both a calamity in and of itself, and also a signpost of our national consciousness. We have achieved a condition of near-total passivity, in which our military and diplomatic initiatives do not, and cannot, alter anything but the most insignificant and fleeting of events. We have reached a state of denial by which we have lost the will, and perhaps the ability, to grasp our true condition. And we have dispensed with the sine qua non of democracy and western civilization: an honest and unwavering embrace of objective reality, along with an examination of the choices necessary to improve it.

Gas prices? Jobs? Health care? How about candor, clarity of purpose, and the moral courage to look unblinkingly at what we have become?

Comments

[bethinCary]

The ultimate problem of the war and this nation---is that most Americans have turned against it..
Americans know it's the huge elephant in the room-a large part that has enabled all of the other scandals of the govt. (Blackwater, torture, economy,eavesdropping, lack of justice, politicization of the all branches of govt..) to be scapegoated..
Yet the msm still tries to deny this fact--still uses thier "look over there--shiny Wright-flagpin objects"..

So for a few moments the awakening consciences of everyone of how immoral this war was-gets thrust back into our SUBconsciences..
But it doesn't stay there for long-We know it was wrong.
Know the illegal occupation is for oil companies to the country blind of any revenue from oil..
This is in our collective consciences now.
For whatever time the msm spends trying to decieve-trying to bury it back into the subconscious-it gets kicked right back out again to the forefont of our conscious/awake brain..
We already know it can't keep getting batted back and forth once it become knowledge..

IQuietly and more loudly now--it's a battle of wills now.
There's another war forming right here --Americans know it's a battle for their souls now and are willing to fight for it.
Politicians that don't realize this must be living under a rock..
Either you side with Americans on this-or risk getting run over.
Those are the choices now--since 70% of antiwar Americans have spoken..

[fairwitness]

Pelosi took impeachment off the table--and the rest is history. When criminal minds are certain they will not be accountable, what can you expect? Crime, of a magnitude equal to the power of the criminals, obviously.

There's plenty of accountability due, God knows, but Nancy Pelosi should receive her due share (right after the Republican party in its entireity, including our enabling neighbors and friends).

[CanAmPastor]

We don't seem to have the troops to do anything else but sit mired down in this mess. As active combat brigades, I would match our fighting forces against any in the world. But as peacekeepers, there are not enough of them to hold back the muslim on muslim violence. As occupiers, there are not enough of them to keep a thumb on the violence. As Americans, they don't do the things the dictator did to hold on to power. So we piddle them away, 47 dead in a month, 4000 dead in five years, a whole generation of American service personnel wounded and maimed.

We know what could work to achieve the goals of rebuilding and stabilizing the government and military in Iraq, but it needs overwhelming force, a full occupation, a full peacekeeping cadre.

Unless we commit to it, we just waste those men and women who have committed their lives to protect our freedom.

[nellie]

What an excellent post. One of the best I've ever read on HuffPo.

[Paralogos]

47 American service personnel killed in a month in a senseless war is bad, but we have 34 murders PER DAY in the US, roughly 90% of them committed with firearms, and 36 drunken driving fataliaties PER DAY. Combat deaths are way down in the noise as far as senseless snuffing of American lives is concerned. And at least those being killed in combat joined the military voluntarily, and their survivors will be entitled to some minimal support from the government in return for their sacrifice. I just don't think there's much political milage to be made in opposing the war on the basis of dead American service personnel.

It's a perfect little war. It allows billions to be looted from the public treasury, while touching few enough families for their tragedy to be safely ignored. I mean, if we're not going to be serious about drunk driving or handgun control, surely we're not going to get bent out of shape about a few thousand dead heroes!

[julieeiluj]

It's the war stupid, and it's the climate change stupid, and it's the greed stupid, and it's dimwitted excuses for leaders stupid.

[mamacat]

After the sweeping Democratic victories in the November 2006 elections, Doofus-in-Chief said that the American People had spoken, and that he would listen. The result of what he calls listening was the "surge" in Iraq, and the continuation of all of the disastrous right wing policies of his administration.

Please America, this November, let's put enough Democrats and honorable Republicans like Ron Paul into office that we can sweep the neo-cons into the dust bin of history, where they belong.

[MrJoyboy]

If we look at what we have become and realize the implications, we might have to give up our SUVs and our McMansions and our whole wasteful way of life...No no no! Never! Let the Iraqis die! Let the Iranians die! Let our soldiers die!

[desmirl]

A lesson in reality is that people who don't know you don't care if you live or die - unless they have a very evolved consciousness. Most people don't have that evolved consciousness, most people don't know the soldiers who have died in Iraq, so most people don't care. It was the same during Vietnam. People didn't care that their neighbors sons were getting drafted to go die in a foreign land for a cause no one could define. But when the protests began, and people were inconvenienced by the byproducts of the protests, then their thoughts were, "Why won't you people be drafted and go get killed without making a fuss? You're inconveniencing me."

[PioneerKing]

Marc:

Your buddies in the main stream media would rather talk about Rev. Wright. Instead of talk about the war. McCain's MSM buddies sold America lies about the war, don't care that McCain will continue Bush/Cheney policies; their sons and daughters are not fighting in the war and their standard of living is not being affected by the economy.
McCain"s buddies in the MSM would rather have another incompetent "good ole boy" in the White House rather than Clinton or Obama.
Marc, tell you buddies in the MSM if they must talk about religion instead of the war, then they must ask
every catholic journalist and catholic in politics "why are they still members of the Catholic Church?"; when the Pope insists on calling the church's covering up pedophilia "the American problem?" Yet, pedophilia by priests is documented worldwide within the Catholic Church. Are Rev. Wright"s comments worse than an institution that protects pedophilia priests and, calls the depravation, "the American problem," while ignoring the problem in other countries?
Teens from polygamist sects called "lost boys" feel the abuse they endured is worse than all of the angry words of Wright. Meanwhile, child brides suffer rape without any of the outrage that has surrounded Wright.
Which is worse; the ranting of Wright or, the scarred lives of children who have been harmed by adults who are sheltered by religious institutions; or the thousands of lives lost in Iraq because the MSM lied about Iraq?

[noam4prez]

I watch CNN every morning before work to find out what our corporations are thinking today, and my most common complaint (ask my wife) is, "Well, it's a good thing nothing happened in Iraq today!"

Not to mention that other little country we "liberated" before Iraq...what was it called? You know, the one where all the opium comes from now...

[itmaybetoolate]

"the moral courage to look unblinkingly at what we have become" - moral courage disappeared a long time ago - how do you get it back once it is lost? I am not sure its possible. I would be happy for some courage, moral or otherwise, to just say no. No to electing anyone who supports the war; no to driving huge SUVs at breakneck speeds; no to the cable news companies who feed us a never ending diet of lies and propaganda; no to the corporate masters who are enslaving us.

Here is a very simple action that anyone can take that will send a strong message (especially if done by a large number of folks) and save you money - turn off your cable. Call the company and tell them the media is helping to kill our democracy and you will not support it anymore. Imagine hundreds of thousands of folks doing this.

But, even this simple act (that will save you money) is too much for people. Even this is too much - picking up the phone, dialing a number, losing hundreds of empty useless channels, and finding yourself 80.00 a month richer.

[mgloraine]

It's very hard to know whether Americans in general have lost focus and a sense of immediacy with regard to Iraq, or if that is merely the appearance of things conjured up by the major media houses. It seemed very much like deliberate manipulation when CNN declared the economy to be "Issue #1" in the campaign a couple of months ago, a buzz-term which they reiterate several times per hour. The other media outlets followed suit shortly thereafter. It seems awfully convenient for the McCain camp that the MSM apparently swallowed, then regurgitated the story that "the surge is working". So everyone should just forget about Iraq now because we're going to be there for the next 100 years, whether we like it or not??

Well, we ARE all concerned about the economy, of course, but since such a large part of our present economic difficulties are caused, worsened, or perpetuated by the disaster in Iraq, (not to mention the fact that people are dying!) that brings us back to looking at the illegal war as "Issue #1". Or perhaps as Issue 1.1, because we still need to be concerned about the Bush White House starting its planned war with Iran.

It seems clear that we are being presented with information intended to draw our attention AWAY from our wars, which is not the same as Americans losing interest or "not watching".

[Stirner]

"We have reached a state of denial". Quite right. As an example: there is only ONE candidate whose policy would have our troops immediately removed from not only that bloody religious cesspool in and around Israel , but from places like South Korea (Will my Toyota warranty be voided if North Korea attacks Japan?). BUT, he won't win the general election . Why? because he has been systematically vilified, distorted, and ignored by a media which wishes us to be more interested in the American Idol than the American future. Yes, he probably won't make it, and we will likely end up with that war-hungry McCain and his "On to Iran" cheerleader Lieberman, or Hillary -- who suggests that we should "obliterate" Iran were it to dare attack our wonderful ally, Israel. 65 million Iranians to pay the price for a few votes. Well, this election will probably be won by either the calcified Republicans or the Republican wannabes, and we will have a war with Iran. Ron Paul doesn't have a chance. As the poet Schiller noted, "against ignorance even the gods are helpless".

[sfbayani]

More reflection of this nature, I love the best here in this website.
Do keep them coming, keep the faith that the American people will be waking up from its long years of slumber. I know. Justice for those victims of Bush's war on terror, both American soldiers and their families and the Iraqi people - which the Clintons have agreed to - will be exceedingly slow. I hope it will not be too late